Self-Driving Cars, Amazon and Networking

Google’s pursuit of self-driving cars has been well documented over the years. The promise of fleets of self-driving vehicles that could potentially make driving safer while simultaneously shortening commute times makes it one of the most attractive futures technologies around. But where would self-driving cars be adopted first?

While there will certainly be some people with deep pockets in Silicon Valley who will want to be early adopters, commuter driving is not likely the place where this catches on first. A few self-driving cars on the freeway will not change the commute times in a meaningful way because they would be minorities amidst a sea of normal cars operating by the same people who have made commuting a nightmare up until this point. With commute times unchanged, it means that individuals would still have the same commute. The only difference is that they could text or read or do whatever while they sit in stop-and-go traffic.

Broader adoption will be led by use cases where the technology eliminates a problem.

To see Plexxi’s integration with OpenDaylight, tune into the March 14 live demonstration on SDNCentral. For full details, check out the event registration page.

Most of the cargo that moves within US borders is still transported by truck. These trucks operate under strict federal regulations that given how many hours drivers can man the wheel in any one day. This means that the distance that goods can move is dependent on the number of hours and the conditions on the road. What would happen if one of those constraints was lifted? Self-driving trucks would allow shipping companies to keep their goods on the move for a much longer period of time each day.

One scenario that could play out would be drivers riding along in the cab while the trucks negotiate major highways. There will still be a need for the actual drivers – filling gas, maintenance, unmapped roads, unusual traffic conditions, and so on. Plus, adoption is not going to start with completely driverless vehicles; a hybrid approach with someone present would make the transition easier.

But which companies push this first? Amazon is an interesting match.

Amazon’s business is retail, but they are really a giant logistics company. Their skills are in managing their supply chain. They have mastered the art of maintaining warehouses using advanced technologies like the Kiva Systems robots.

But despite all their prowess, it’s tough to compete with the same-day availability that local stores offer. Sure, Amazon has spun up same-day delivery services in a handful of markets, but these will be very limited by proximity to the goods being shipped. In essence, if people live within range of an existing warehouse, they can get same-day service.

To expand the service to more goods and geographies, Amazon could build out more warehouses. But the retail market exists on razor-thin margins. Building out a bunch of infrastructure to support same-day delivery might not be an economically viable model. But what would happen if Amazon could extend its warehouse capacity to where it was needed in a model that was more dynamic and elastic?

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

Self-driving trucks might make it possible to essentially provide rolling micro-warehouses stocked with goods based on trending demand. You wouldn’t pack the trucks with every good, but you might be able to stock them with basic staples that map to historic demand for certain areas. The trucks would be dispatched from their super-regional warehouses and then distribute en route to the next warehouse. There is still a last-mile problem; you wouldn’t use huge semis to deliver goods to individual homes. But Amazon could continue to use existing distribution channels. That said, it wouldn’t be a stretch to extend the self-driving car model to smaller delivery trucks as well, giving Amazon complete ownership over the delivery process.

So how does this relate to networking?

Networking has similar requirements around capacity. Where Amazon builds general warehouse capacity, most networks build out similar aggregate capacity. Without knowing what the traffic load will be or where it will manifest, both Amazon and network architectures provide high amounts of centralized capacity from which they serve their users.

However, Amazon’s problem is not solving its aggregate warehouse capacity problem. Instead, Amazon needs to provide capacity in much smaller sizes but in the locations that capacity is required. Similarly, solving the aggregate network capacity problem is interesting, but it is perhaps more meaningful to be able to provide smaller amounts of capacity where and when it is needed.

The question is how do you provide the required fluidity of capacity?

We have trained our industry for the past few years to think about applications as portable. Accordingly, we have spent a lot of time focused on how to make the network adjust to moving application workloads. But it’s not just the compute workloads that need to be portable. The networking workloads have a similar requirement. But how do you make capacity fluid when everything is statically wired?

Maybe that’s a problem worth solving too.

[Today’s fun fact: Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better than men. I don’t know about other guys, but my wife certainly hears everything I say under my breath.]

The best marketing efforts leverage deep technology understanding with a highly-approachable means of communicating. Plexxi's Vice President of Marketing Michael Bushong has acquired these skills having spent 12 years at Juniper Networks where he led product management, product strategy and product marketing organizations for Juniper's flagship operating system, Junos. Michael spent the last several years at Juniper leading their SDN efforts across both service provider and enterprise markets. Prior to Juniper, Michael spent time at database supplier Sybase, and ASIC design tool companies Synopsis and Magma Design Automation. Michael's undergraduate work at the University of California Berkeley in advanced fluid mechanics and heat transfer lend new meaning to the marketing phrase "This isn't rocket science."

Internet of Things (IoT) will be a hybrid ecosystem of diverse devices and sensors collaborating with operational and enterprise systems to create the next big application.
In their session at @ThingsExpo, Bramh Gupta, founder and CEO of robomq.io, and Fred Yatzeck, principal architect leading product development at robomq.io, will discuss how choosing the right middleware and integration strategy from the get-go will enable IoT solution developers to adapt and grow with the industry, while at the same time reduce Time to Market (TTM) by using plug and play capabilities offered by a robust I...

After making a doctor’s appointment via your mobile device, you receive a calendar invite. The day of your appointment, you get a reminder with the doctor’s location and contact information. As you enter the doctor’s exam room, the medical team is equipped with the latest tablet containing your medical history – he or she makes real time updates to your medical file. At the end of your visit, you receive an electronic prescription to your preferred pharmacy and can schedule your next appointment.

SYS-CON Events announced today that Solgenia will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, and the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Solgenia is the global market leader in Cloud Collaboration and Cloud Infrastructure software solutions. Designed to “Bridge the Gap” between Personal and Professional Social, Mobile and Cloud user experiences, our solutions help large and medium-sized organizations dr...

While not quite mainstream yet, WebRTC is starting to gain ground with Carriers, Enterprises and Independent Software Vendors (ISV’s) alike. WebRTC makes it easy for developers to add audio and video communications into their applications by using Web browsers as their platform. But like any market, every customer engagement has unique requirements, as well as constraints. And of course, one size does not fit all.
In her session at WebRTC Summit, Dr. Natasha Tamaskar, Vice President, Head of Cloud and Mobile Strategy at GENBAND, will explore what is needed to take a real time communications ...

The world's leading Cloud event, Cloud Expo has launched Microservices Journal on the SYS-CON.com portal, featuring over 19,000 original articles, news stories, features, and blog entries.
DevOps Journal is focused on this critical enterprise IT topic in the world of cloud computing.
Microservices Journal offers top articles, news stories, and blog posts from the world's well-known experts and guarantees better exposure for its authors than any other publication.
Follow new article posts on Twitter at @MicroservicesE

SYS-CON Events announced today that Litmus Automation will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Litmus Automation’s vision is to provide a solution for companies that are in a rush to embrace the disruptive Internet of Things technology and leverage it for real business challenges. Litmus Automation simplifies the complexity of connected devices applications with Loop, a secure and scalable cloud platform.

SYS-CON Events announced today the IoT Bootcamp – Jumpstart Your IoT Strategy, being held June 9–10, 2015, in conjunction with 16th Cloud Expo and Internet of @ThingsExpo at the Javits Center in New York City. This is your chance to jumpstart your IoT strategy.
Combined with real-world scenarios and use cases, the IoT Bootcamp is not just based on presentations but includes hands-on demos and walkthroughs. We will introduce you to a variety of Do-It-Yourself IoT platforms including Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, Spark and Intel Edison. You will also get an overview of cloud technologies s...

Containers and microservices have become topics of intense interest throughout the cloud developer and enterprise IT communities.
Accordingly, attendees at the upcoming 16th Cloud Expo at the Javits Center in New York June 9-11 will find fresh new content in a new track called PaaS | Containers & Microservices
Containers are not being considered for the first time by the cloud community, but a current era of re-consideration has pushed them to the top of the cloud agenda. With the launch of Docker's initial release in March of 2013, interest was revved up several notches. Then late last...

The WebRTC Summit 2014 New York, to be held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York, NY, announces that its Call for Papers is open. Topics include all aspects of improving IT delivery by eliminating waste through automated business models leveraging cloud technologies. WebRTC Summit is co-located with 16th International Cloud Expo, @ThingsExpo, Big Data Expo, and DevOps Summit.

SOA Software has changed its name to Akana. With roots in Web Services and SOA Governance, Akana has established itself as a leader in API Management and is expanding into cloud integration as an alternative to the traditional heavyweight enterprise service bus (ESB). The company recently announced that it achieved more than 90% year-over-year growth. As Akana, the company now addresses the evolution and diversification of SOA, unifying security, management, and DevOps across SOA, APIs, microservices, and more.

Wearable technology was dominant at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) , and MWC was no exception to this trend. New versions of favorites, such as the Samsung Gear (three new products were released: the Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo and the Gear Fit), shared the limelight with new wearables like Pebble Time Steel (the new premium version of the company’s previously released smartwatch) and the LG Watch Urbane.
The most dramatic difference at MWC was an emphasis on presenting wearables as fashion accessories and moving away from the original clunky technology associated with t...

SYS-CON Events announced today that robomq.io will exhibit at SYS-CON's @ThingsExpo, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
robomq.io is an interoperable and composable platform that connects any device to any application. It helps systems integrators and the solution providers build new and innovative products and service for industries requiring monitoring or intelligence from devices and sensors.

The list of ‘new paradigm’ technologies that now surrounds us appears to be at an all time high. From cloud computing and Big Data analytics to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and the Internet of Things (IoT), today we have to deal with what the industry likes to call ‘paradigm shifts’ at every level of IT.
This is disruption; of course, we understand that – change is almost always disruptive.

SYS-CON Events announced today that SafeLogic has been named “Bag Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo® New York, which will take place June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
SafeLogic provides security products for applications in mobile and server/appliance environments. SafeLogic’s flagship product CryptoComply is a FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic engine designed to secure data on servers, workstations, appliances, mobile devices, and in the Cloud.

GENBAND has announced that SageNet is leveraging the Nuvia platform to deliver Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) to its large base of retail and enterprise customers. Nuvia’s cloud-based solution provides SageNet’s customers with a full suite of business communications and collaboration tools.
Two large national SageNet retail customers have recently signed up to deploy the Nuvia platform and the company will continue to sell the service to new and existing customers. Nuvia’s capabilities include HD voice, video, multimedia messaging, mobility, conferencing, Web collaboration, deskt...

SYS-CON Media announced today that @WebRTCSummit Blog, the largest WebRTC resource in the world, has been launched.
@WebRTCSummit Blog offers top articles, news stories, and blog posts from the world's well-known experts and guarantees better exposure for its authors than any other publication.
@WebRTCSummit Blog can be bookmarked ▸ Here
@WebRTCSummit conference site can be bookmarked ▸ Here

SYS-CON Events announced today that Cisco, the worldwide leader in IT that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, has been named “Gold Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Cisco makes amazing things happen by connecting the unconnected. Cisco has shaped the future of the Internet by becoming the worldwide leader in transforming how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco and our partners are building the platform for the Internet of Everything by connecting the...

Temasys has announced senior management additions to its team. Joining are David Holloway as Vice President of Commercial and Nadine Yap as Vice President of Product.
Over the past 12 months Temasys has doubled in size as it adds new customers and expands the development of its Skylink platform. Skylink leads the charge to move WebRTC, traditionally seen as a desktop, browser based technology, to become a ubiquitous web communications technology on web and mobile, as well as Internet of Things compatible devices.

Docker is an excellent platform for organizations interested in running microservices. It offers portability and consistency between development and production environments, quick provisioning times, and a simple way to isolate services.
In his session at DevOps Summit at 16th Cloud Expo, Shannon Williams, co-founder of Rancher Labs, will walk through these and other benefits of using Docker to run microservices, and provide an overview of RancherOS, a minimalist distribution of Linux designed expressly to run Docker. He will also discuss Rancher, an orchestration and service discovery platf...

SYS-CON Events announced today that Vitria Technology, Inc. will exhibit at SYS-CON’s @ThingsExpo, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Vitria will showcase the company’s new IoT Analytics Platform through live demonstrations at booth #330. Vitria’s IoT Analytics Platform, fully integrated and powered by an operational intelligence engine, enables customers to rapidly build and operationalize advanced analytics to deliver timely business outcomes for use cases across the industrial, enterprise, and consumer segments.

In recent years, we’ve watched mobile, cloud technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) enable increased connectivity for every network and every industry, ranging from connected cars to commercial vehicles and fleet management to smart cities to data centers. At MWC, it was clear that professionals in these areas are continuing to make strides in their fields. Below are a few of the major developments we noticed and look forward to hearing more as 2015 progresses.

Recent announcements from Google about the future of Glass naturally ignited an explosion of commentary in the tech media. For those of us in the Glass at Work world, the news that Glass has “graduated” from Google[x] into a true business unit headed by Tony Fadell is very promising. Yet many outlets’ coverage focused on the end of the Glass Explorer program for consumers, characterizing it as the final death knell for the technology.

SYS-CON Events announced today the IoT Bootcamp – Jumpstart Your IoT Strategy, being held June 9–10, 2015, in conjunction with 16th Cloud Expo and Internet of @ThingsExpo at the Javits Center in New York City. This is your chance to jumpstart your IoT strategy.
Combined with real-world scenarios and use cases, the IoT Bootcamp is not just based on presentations but includes hands-on demos and walkthroughs. We will introduce you to a variety of Do-It-Yourself IoT platforms including Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, Spark and Intel Edison. You will also get an overview of cloud technologies s...

There's a lot of focus on the performance of mobile communications given the incredible rate at which mobile is outpacing legacy PC (did you ever think we'd see the day when we called it that?) usage. There's been tons of research on the topic ranging from the business impact (you really can lose millions of dollars per second of delay) to the technical mechanics of how mobile communications is impacted by traditional factors like bandwidth and RTT. Spoiler: RTT is more of a factor than is bandwidth in improving mobile app performance.

Containers and microservices have become topics of intense interest throughout the cloud developer and enterprise IT communities.
Accordingly, attendees at the upcoming 16th Cloud Expo at the Javits Center in New York June 9-11 will find fresh new content in a new track called PaaS | Containers & Microservices
Containers are not being considered for the first time by the cloud community, but a current era of re-consideration has pushed them to the top of the cloud agenda. With the launch of Docker's initial release in March of 2013, interest was revved up several notches. Then late last...

An explosive combination of technology trends will be where ‘microservices’ and the IoT Internet of Things intersect, a concept we can describe by comparing it with a previous theme, the ‘X Internet.'
The idea of using small self-contained application components has been popular since XML Web services began and a distributed computing future of smart fridges and kettles was imagined long back in the early Internet years.

Although Windows 10 is not RTM yet, the following are the rumored version. However Microsoft is extending the reach by adding Windows 10 IoT to the above list. It is Windows 10 for embedded and supports universal apps and drives and can work for the whole spectrum of devices from simple devices to complicated industrial devices. With this additional version the Windows 10 is surely driving towards the OnePlatform concept.

Wearable technology was dominant at this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) , and MWC was no exception to this trend. New versions of favorites, such as the Samsung Gear (three new products were released: the Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo and the Gear Fit), shared the limelight with new wearables like Pebble Time Steel (the new premium version of the company’s previously released smartwatch) and the LG Watch Urbane.
The most dramatic difference at MWC was an emphasis on presenting wearables as fashion accessories and moving away from the original clunky technology associated with t...

Security is one the more prominent of the application service categories, likely due to its high profile impact. After all, if security fails, we all hear about it. The entire Internet. Forever.
So when one conducts a survey on the state of application delivery (which is implemented using application services) you kinda have to include security.
Which of course, we did.

The presentation describes the emergence of the On Demand Economy, how new super-scale ventures like Uber taxis, Airbnb and others are transforming the fundamental operating models for corporations and consequently destroying the competition in the industries they are disrupting.
They do so by leveraging the peer to peer model, cultivating marketplace models for dynamically matching demand and supply.
This was part of a week long trip around the Baltics, who already have significant pedigree in this field, with Estonia being home to Skype and also more recently TransferWise, who are disrupti...

I’ve been travelling recently. To places and fields that have limited to no mobile connectivity and this can be a challenge when a challenge arises.
Immediately following Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this month, my family embarked on a multi-week European vacation. After spending a couple more days in Spain, we jumped on the rail to Paris for a couple days and then on to Rome for 10 days. The Eiffel Tower along with ‘I see London, I see France, I see Daddy’s….’ request was our daughter’s and Italy was something we’ve wanted to do for a while. During the train ride – which was fa...

SYS-CON Media announced today that @WebRTCSummit Blog, the largest WebRTC resource in the world, has been launched.
@WebRTCSummit Blog offers top articles, news stories, and blog posts from the world's well-known experts and guarantees better exposure for its authors than any other publication.
@WebRTCSummit Blog can be bookmarked ▸ Here
@WebRTCSummit conference site can be bookmarked ▸ Here

@ThingsExpo has been named the Top 5 Most Influential M2M Brand by Onalytica in the ‘Machine to Machine: Top 100 Influencers and Brands.' Onalytica analyzed the online debate on M2M by looking at over 85,000 tweets to provide the most influential individuals and brands that drive the discussion. According to Onalytica the "analysis showed a very engaged community with a lot of interactive tweets. The M2M discussion seems to be more fragmented and driven by some of the major brands present in the M2M space. This really allows some room for influential individuals to create more high value inter...

At the recent Mobile World Congress 2015 (MWC) in Barcelona, we heard operators and vendors discuss the future of mobile network connectivity around the globe. While we look forward to new updates on this subject (and updates from these major players), the conference was also ripe with examples of how mobile technology is driving other areas of innovation. In our second blog of this series, we’ll explore this impact on the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), financial transactions and personal devices.

The competition among public cloud providers is red hot, private cloud continues to grab increasing shares of IT budgets, and hybrid cloud strategies are beginning to conquer the enterprise IT world.

Big Data is driving dramatic leaps in resource requirements and capabilities, and now the Internet of Things promises an exponential leap in the size of the Internet and Worldwide Web.

The world of SDX now encompasses Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDCs) as the technology world prepares for the Zettabyte Age.

Add the key topics of WebRTC and DevOps into the mix, and you have three days of pure cloud computing that you simply cannot miss.

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